Not many of you

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. - James 3:1

Ugh. I have read this verse over and over. It has permeated my thoughts as J and I prepare our teaching for this Saturday. It bangs me over the head when I wonder what to talk about with my girls on Thursday afternoons. It makes me laugh that laugh that only those who are teachers get when they hear this verse. Greater strictness? No kidding! Ugh

And why, does God see it wise to bring more girls into my life to teach? Doesn't he know I'm already doing a shoddy job in the lives already here? Doesn't he know that I'm already overwhelmed by the giving account that I have to give for these little children? These aren't even my kids, but I feel the weight of them becoming functional adults so heavy on my heart. I need them to hear the gospel more than I need food. It is tempting to ask God why he put me in this time and place. I feel like Moses trying to convince God that I'm not cut out for the job of declaring freedom to the captives.

I had a conversation with God today that wasn't very polite on my end. It was actually kinda bratty. Man, I can be such a toddler sometimes. I have been praying for wisdom about our adoption for weeks. I have been claiming James 1:5 as a promise. I have prayed fervently for wisdom. But I haven't done a  whole lot of listening to God's response. So, I was praying for wisdom in another situation, as I was on my way to meet with one of my girls. And, in my bratty, unbridled tongue way, basically told God I don't think he has given wisdom when I asked in faith about it regarding our adoption, so maybe at least he could give me a little regarding this other situation. I am thankful that  God doesn't strike me down in righteous anger for such presumptions upon his gifts and nature.

After a good productive time with my girl, I came home and sat down to write a post for the Read-Along. I figured I should read James 3 again just so it's fresh in my brain. Or maybe it was more God saying, "read this, I have something for you to learn." James 3:17-18 hit me like a ton of bricks.

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

I have not been living a very wise life. I am asking God for wisdom, and yet the words of my mouth, and thus where my heart is, are not very pure. I have not been making peace. I am FAR from gentle. What is reason? I don't think I have any. I admitted to J last night that I have no mercy left in me. And good fruits? Let's not even head down that road of lack. I see only what I want to see, and how I want to see it. Sarcasm is dripping from my tongue like venom. I am sowing discord, and guess what I'm harvesting...

Again, not many should become teachers.

But God
...has reconciled me to himself, so that he could present me as holy, blameless, above reproach, and steadfastly rooted in him (Col 1:21-23)
...has made me alive in Christ, and adopted me into his family in order to show me the immeasurable riches of his grace (Eph 2:1-10)
...has justified me by grace, as a gift, and has satisfied his wrath against me and washed me clean by the blood of Christ (Romans 3:19-26)
...has poured out richly through Jesus, because of his great mercy, the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:3-7)

Oh Lord, help me to see the wisdom that you have given richly to me, and to live in it.

Call to prayer

This is an edited version of  an email we sent to close friends and family. Some folks read here, but have not received that email, so if you fall into that category, here you go!

Hey friends and family!

We are sorry for the complete lack of communication lately about our adoption, but those of you who know anything about adoption know that this is how it is sometimes. We do not have any updates per se, and so we have not emailed with updates. Here is what has transpired in the last few weeks.

• We have received a few more pictures of our daughter, she is still beautiful, and our hearts are still in love with her sweet face.
• Her advocate, our sole source of information, has had some major family crises happen in the last few weeks, and has really had to focus on her life, which has, with good reason, pushed us to the background for a bit.
• We are still waiting for the US government to get things taken care of, and if you watch the news at all you know that there are so many other big things on plates of government officials right now, our little family isn't very significant to them.
• We still don't know if when to expect to travel.

As you can see, not much has changed. But, our hearts have changed in a big way. J and I talked the other night about where we are at, and both of us feel like it's time to really fight for our daughter. Unfortunately, there isn't much we can do tangibly to fight for her. Basically what we are being told is to stay out of the way and let the professionals do what they do. So how do we fight for our daughter from the sidelines? This is what God says to us:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. -- Eph 6:10-12

This is where our fight is. We feel that the delays, and the silence, and the chaos in the advocate's life, and the struggle in our hearts are not necessarily things from God, but some are attacks of the spiritual forces of evil. Our enemy does not like adoption. It is a beautiful real life picture of the power of God to redeem lives, and it brings great glory to God when his people hear his call in adoption. (James 1:27) I don't say that to make myself feel special, I say it because it is true. Just as marriage is constantly attacked because it is the image of God and his church, adoption is attacked because it is the image of our inheritance in the kingdom of God. So we are entering into spiritual battle for our daughter, and it will be a long and hard fight that will continue for the rest of her life.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because we need your help. Many of you have sweetly reminded us on dozens of occasions that you are praying for us. For that we are so grateful. Many more of you are praying even though we don't know specifically of it. If there are any of you who feel a heart burden for our daughter, or for us, it is time for you to stand against the schemes of the devil. Our God is great and mighty, and has called us as his people to fight for justice to reign on the earth. We are hands and feet delivering justice by caring for the poor, the orphans, and the widows, but we are also soldiers fighting in the epic battle against evil that threatens to destroy hearts and lives. We will not back down, we will not surrender, for the LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. (Psalm 46)

Dear friends, please pray. Pray against the schemes of the devil that would try to stop God's plan of redemption for our daughter. Pray for saving faith to blossom in her heart. Pray against the whispers of discouragement planted in our minds like flaming darts. Pray for joy in our hearts as we face this trial and are tempted to despair. Pray against the attacks coming on the lives of people involved in facilitating our adoption. Pray for their hearts to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Pray against delays in the government. Pray for wisdom for our governmental leaders in regard to our nation, our family, and our daughter. Pray. Even when you don't hear from us for a while, pray. Even when you wonder what God is doing in our lives by calling us to this, pray. Even when you get tired of hearing us ask for prayer and want to do something practical, pray. Please pray.

Thank you all for standing with us in the first line of defense for our daughter!

Love!

D & J

I get a little excited...

Here we are in week 2 of the James read along with Marla and friends, and I am so excited about what God is doing.

I had to laugh at God's providence this week. I read James 2, and Ephesians 2 at the same time. If you don't realize how funny this is, seriously go read both and note the times that they are seemingly contradictory. One could easily miss the great similarities of these two chapters of the Bible because they are so differently written. Paul is all high and lofty, throwing in these amazing transcendent explanations of the entire plan of salvation from the beginning of time while at the same time reminding us that this is not a self-justifying faith, and James is down and dirty calling us out in our laziness and judgmental attitudes. You could even read James 2:14-26 and Ephesians 2:8-9 and think that the Bible obviously contradicts itself. And therefore, if it contradicts itself in this one place, how many other places are contradictory? And if that doubt is legitimate, well then we might as well just put the Bible away, not place our hope in it, and try out something else that seems a little more logical, or at least easier to figure out.

But rather than lose heart, I choose to dig. As one of the elders at our church likes to remind us, it's all about context, and no one verse was made to stand on its own to explain the entirety of God's plan for all eternity, even though some of them come close. The Bible is an unfolding of the story of redemption over millennium. We can spend our entire lives exploring the mystery of Jesus revealed in scriptures and still have so much we don't understand.

I know, this is a study of James, but I'm going to diverge into Ephesians 2:1-10 for a sec, mostly because this paragraph is one of my go to scriptures when reminding high-schoolers of the gospel. Revel in it for a bit if you will:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

You just have to LOVE when God puts in the most amazing use of that little contraction "but" to just blow our minds with his plan. This is the cross, inserted precisely in the moment of dire wreckage, that causes our hearts to wonder at the love so richly poured out by the blood of our Savior!

But how in the world does this passage, and James go so neatly together? Did you catch the last sentence?

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

We are created in Christ Jesus for good works! We who are the bride of Christ, the bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, bride of Jesus, are made for good works. And these aren't just random, haphazard good works, because God in his sovereignty prepared them for us, and us for them. So we are to walk in them. What are these good works? God already told us that in James! Praise be to God that this book of his redemptive history ties all together, and has the power to relieve our lost, doubting hearts from fear and worry!

Hold Fast

Sometimes you just need to be reminded to hold fast to your God.

Wisdom, With a Dash of Meekness

Here I go on another read-along with my sweet sister Marla. Yet again, God is timely in his placing of these read-alongs on my life. So, where am I, and why is a study of James so needed in my life? Have a sit, and let's talk...

My sweet husband and I received a call about a month ago about a girl who needed a family to adopt her, and based on what we had previously told my friend who works at a placing agency, our hearts were longing for just this girl. Well, honestly when we got the call, our hearts were not longing for this girl, and we felt very unready to say yes, but in theory this is the kind of kid we were thinking of when we talked about adoption. After several hours apart, praying while going about our day, we convened in the kitchen for a talk about the girl that God had placed in our hearts through one little phone call. As we each voiced our concerns, the other one would say "But God..." and then that concern seemed so invalid. This "But God" has been rolling around in my brain for about 6 months, so it's no surprise that God used those two simple words to warm my heart of clay to his intentions.

We expected her home any day now, and she is still not. We are in the midst of limbo, and it is the ugly, sticky, grey kind of gut-wrenching, faith-mocking, heart-breaking waiting that our hearts are unable to comprehend. There are days where I feel like I can't pray because my prayers feel too bitter to express. There are many days where James 1:2-4 are just a reminder of how little I trust God to give me the gift of children. How can I count it as joy when my heart yearns for the unseen? At what point will my faith be tested enough to produce steadfastness? When will my lacking of my daughter, the piece of my heart I didn't even know existed a month ago, be taken away and my joy fulfilled? Oh my soul, cling to your God!

But God has reminded me this week to ask for wisdom. There is so much I don't know, and may never know about my daughter, but I have to make decisions on her behalf before she is "officially" mine. Those decisions do not have to be made out of the combined pea-brain power of my brain and my husbands. I can ask my Father for wisdom, and he will give graciously to me without mocking me for my need. And God reminds me to hurry up and listen, be quiet, and slow my roll. (James 1:19 Dani Standard Version or DSV.)

Then I start to read the verses about bridling my tongue, and there is a big gulp that resounds in the chasms of my heart. My tongue gets away from me often, mostly because I take pride in it being unbridled. I am not good at all about shutting my mouth. The "be still and quiet" passages of the Bible are ones that I LOVE quoting to others, especially the horde of teenagers God has blessed me with, but really don't like to hear them for myself. There are rare times when I say things and then take a step back and say "Whoa! That was awesome!" More often though, I step back and say "Ugh! How does that meanness (ugliness, selfishness, etc.) come out of a heart that God has recreated?" How can I pray on the phone with a sweet girl who is struggling with loneliness, and then turn around and be sarcastic to my husband? And what do I do about it?

I NEED to receive with meekness the implanted Word, which is able to save my soul. The Word has become flesh and dwelt among us, more fully within those who have believed.  I need to receive Him in meekness. God in his mercy reminds me of 1 Peter 3:1-6, and then gently reminds my troubled heart that he is my good and perfect husband. Lord help me, I need a gentle and quiet spirit!